Patent Application Pendency Might Be At A Turning Point

Law360, New York (November 30, 2012, 12:53 PM EST) -- Sept. 16, 2012 has come and gone, and the attention of many U.S. patent practitioners now shifts to March 16, 2013, the next critical date when several provisions of the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act come into force.[1] This brief respite provides an opportune moment to revisit the issue of patent application pendency.

We have examined trends in measures of application pendency including patent term adjustment (“PTA”) and time to issuance (“mean pendency”).[2] Considered in the context of recent U.S. Patent and Trademark office policy initiatives...